It is well known to any maintenance minded person, that the overhead gutters of a building, whether it be ones at home, place of work or factory, must be periodically cleaned in order to prevent such gutters from becoming clogged with leaves and other debris which is collected therein.
As is to be expected if one ignores proper maintenance and cleaning of gutters this leaves the problem of ultimate improper water-flow to the ground from the roof of the building during rainfall.
Instead of having the rainwater appropriately directed from the roof of the building, through the overhead guttering and into the down-pipe for washing away through storm water drains, once leaves and other debris have clogged up the overhead guttering, such water is not directed through the drainage system but alternatively spills out in all directions cascading down onto ground surfaces, often not designed to accept the flow of water, which could lead to such flows heading back into the building, leading to rising damp and other such structural problems to the building.
Still further, failure to properly clean gutters also inevitably results in accelerated deterioration of the gutters and eaves as the rotting material accelerates the corrosion of the material making up the guttering.
Traditionally, the maintenance minded person when going about cleaning gutters, climbs upon a ladder and removes the leaves and debris by hand. Sometimes gloves or even scraping devices, such as one with a handle where longitudinally extending there from is a blade, the kind one associates with scraping paint from a wall of the like.
Nonetheless it is quite incidental whether or not gloves or these traditional scraping blades are used because in any event such methods to clean the overhead gutters requires either an individual perform the dangerous task of crawling around the perimeter of the house cleaning the entire gutter system, or perhaps even worse, continually returning to the ground and shifting a ladder laterally three to four feet and then again climbing the ladder to remove the debris from the gutter, because three to four feet is about the maximum span an outstretched hand has to grasp at leaves and debris contained within the guttering.
Not only is such techniques for cleaning the overhead guttering potentially dangerous to the maintenance minded person, it is also particularly laborious and time consuming.
In an effort to render gutter cleaning a less undesirable maintenance chore, various alternatives have been presented in the past to try and overcome the problem of overhead gutter cleaning through the use of ones hand or a very basic scraper, once again where such scrapers are characterized by a short stump handle grasped in the palm of the user and then a blade longitudinally extending from such stump.
One such common method has been the introduction of a rain gutter cleaner which includes an attachment to secure a cleaning device to a source of fluid under pressure such as a garden hose.
As the person skilled in the art and is familiar with cleaning gutters would be familiar with, this device includes discharge orifices that directs streams of fluid along the length of the gutter to clean the debris from the gutter surfaces.
Nonetheless techniques for cleaning overhead gutters of a building or the like, utilizing pressurized fluid, such as water directed along the length of the guttering to wash away accumulated debris has a particular disadvantage of inappropriate use of a scarce resource such as water.
A further problem with such an arrangement is that as one would expect, once the leaves and the debris have hardened, generally by being baked in sunshine after rain, to dislodge such debris, significant amounts of pressure would need to be applied to have a material such as water to be able to dislodge the leaves and the like from the guttering.
Still further, the utilization of pressurized fluid has a major problem of blocking one part of the guttering, then leading to further blockages in the down pipe. As the debris and the leaves become intertwined with the pressurized fluid flow, if there is no filtering or the like taking place at the down pipe, the same leaves and debris have the potential to accumulate within the down pipe causing blockages and disruption in that part of the overall rainwater drainage system.
Therefore there still remains in the technology associated with the cleaning of overhead gutters for buildings and the like for a tool, device or apparatus that is able to improve upon these aforelisted means of cleaning or removing leaves and debris from such gutters.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide an apparatus for removing accumulated leaves and other debris from an overhead gutter of a building or the like, that would be easy to use, less laborious and will not waste unnecessary water resources.
The further object of the invention is to overcome or at least substantially ameliorate some of the disadvantages and shortcomings of conventional gutter cleaning devices and methods referred to above and currently existing, or at least provide the purchasing public with a useful alternative to such conventional means and apparatus for cleaning overhead gutters that are presently available on the market.
The secondary objects and the advantages of the invention will become apparent from a full reading of this broadly described invention.